UPDATE 2:Instalanche! Thanks to the great Glenn Reynolds for the link. BTW, how does he do it? Constitutional law prof, 24/7 blogger, family man, PJTV honcho, gadget guru, author... And his political views are both mainstream and on the cutting edge of the libertarian revolution. The dude is amazing. Not that I'm sucking up or anything.

UPDATE 3: Ha! Jane Duquette points out in the comments that one of the guy's areas of practice is "false advertising."

I never could have figured out that he's a plant without this post and, of course, the sign. Many of us will remember things like putting a sign on someone's back from grade school (or before), I'm sure a lot of people are thanking this site for the memories!

Imagine what would happen if a conservative lawyer, an Officer of the Court, pretended to believe that the moon landing was faked in order to make Democrats he knew nothing about look stupid.

Maybe he can become a Poster Boy for reducing the enormous influence of Big Law on the Democratic Party and vice versa. Current American tort law is a massive drain on the economy and on the vitality of the nation.

According to his firm's website, "he practices primarily in the Commercial Litigation group, handling a wide array of business litigation matters with particular emphases on unfair competition, false advertising," Nothing like someone with an emphases on unfair competition and especially FALSE ADVERTISING!

You should stop trying to distract people from the fact that the tea parties are full of white hate-mongers who aren't protesting high taxes, but the fact that tax dollars are spent on minorities to help them recover from the devastation from the centuries of abuse caused by white people. They can't possibly be upset about high taxes because of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and white, which is all you will find at the tea parties. These people all Bush the salad days of Bush when they were the big recipients of government handouts. Now that Obama is taking excellent care of minorities, and given them the same healthcare the whites have access to, the tea partiers are losing their minds. Maybe they should get jobs and shut up.

I don't think that this guy should be treated as benign. While it's amusing to some degree, it does discredit the movement to those driving by that don't understand. That's the point, is it not?

There was a conservative group that used to infiltrate liberal protests with signs that said, "communism never hurt anyone" and then listed the casualties of communism. But they were holding signs they were willing to stand behind. They weren't smearing others by expressing views they themselves did not believe in.

I say hold this guy accountable by editing out everything in the photo but himself and his sign and then circulate it as widely as you can. It will give others pause before standing behind signs that can come back to haunt them.

He's just an impressionable kid who fell in with the wrong crowd (leftist law profs, PBS, the Barbara Boxer fan page on Facebook...)

While the Crash the Tea Party movement is an underhanded, dirty attempt to crush dissenters exercising their First Amendment rights, I don't think it rises to the level of an ethical violation in the eyes of the legal profession.

I was the young girl with the sign that had a swastika on it. For everyone else's information, since William/Susanne doesn't seem to remember, my sign said, "NO Hitler Inspired Health Reform," with a small swastika symbol above health reform. But let it be understood that the word NO was in two, large red letters that took up the entire poster. It's obvious then that the whole sign (which said NO) was negating the central statement "Hitler Inspired Health Reform".

Many people perceived it correctly and commended the truth that it stood for and my courage for standing with it. My other sign, on the opposite side, said, "STOP ObamaIdolatry"

I went to the other side of the street to put myself into a less crowded position so that my sign would get more exposure, because whether people want to believe it or not, we are headed to a "soft fascism" now known as "corporatism" as it has been explained by Ron Paul.

Aside from the plethora of compliments I received about my signs, there were a small handful of people, including some aggressive & drunk guy who was with the tea party organizers, who were not bright/educated/courageous enough to realize the honesty behind the message I was spreading.

So, William; Susanne Waites, before you throw stones...be sure you understand the full story. I am a staunch defender of truth and all those who know me know my passion for truth and are witnesses to my integrity. My stepdad was a Vietnam Veteran, his father a WW2 Hero, and I have lived in SWFL for 24 years. I am not a "Tea Party Crasher", socialist, or racist, as that belligerent, drunk, tea party organizer accused me of. His fear and paranoia of "Tea Party Crashers" brought him to betrayal of a fellow patriot.

And if you all are not careful, and are not mindful to test and consider all things, you will find yourselves falling into the same deception.

Moreover, I am on the serious lookout and searching the internet daily to defuse any of the misperceptions that exist about my sign and my integrity for standing on the side of truth.

You have been informed. May God give you a greater spirit of discernment to save your own integrity before you make your next judgment. Moreover, please forgive the tone of frustration in my comment, but I was seriously attacked by that drunk tea party organizer and I have yet to fully vindicate myself. But God is faithful and when I'm convinced that I have had the full opportunity to vindicate myself..I will feel a lot better.

Otherwise, William/Susanne, I forgive you for your misperception and pray that you and everyone will be given the courage, understanding, knowledge, and wisdom to KNOW THE TRUTH about the current deceptive workings in our government.

What are you so full of yourself for? The tea party has been smeared with a false accusation of racism so you make a sign with a swastika on it that could clearly be misunderstood by many driving by or even worse, used by the blogs and media as propaganda. Yes, darlin' they can get just the right shot.

You can explain the brilliance of your sign all day long. Pure genius. The only problem is that it was incredibly STUPID to create a sign with a swastika on it for a tea party event and it doesn't take genius to get that.

Your overall impact was more negative than positive. Get off your high horse.

What about my comment makes it seem that I am full of myself? I am simply defending my integrity. I am not stating that my sign had the most educated comment...because it obviously didn't, considering the tea party (from what I've heard) had asked its supporters not to bring signs with any racist symbols such as swastikas. I was not aware of this as this was my first tea party and I do not necessarily follow the tea party trend. I am simply a libertarian who believes in our right for freedom of speech and it in support of our constitution & bill of rights. There were many people there who were much more educated than I am about the subjects at hand; moreover, this is why I thought it relevant to point out the number of compliments my sign had received.

I had every right to stand for what I believe in and while my sign may have been controversial, it was not ill-intended and was not meant to deface the Tea Party name. Could my sign have been more tactful, had I had a better understanding of what some of the tea party organizers were requesting? ...Yes! Would I have omitted the small swastika symbol if I could do it over again? ...Yes!

But the point is, I do not deserve to be falsely accused. No one does. And there is nothing wrong with telling someone that they should do there homework before making accusations, especially when it is with good intentions.

"& drunk guy who was with the tea party organizers, who were not bright/educated/courageous enough to realize the honesty behind the message I was spreading."

Look, I'll take it at face value that your intentions were good and that you want to set the record straight. But next time, don't be getting mad at others who prevent you from embarrassing the entire group with a sign that sent the wrong message, no matter how well intended the messenger.

Moreover, I could have worded the quoted area more tactfully, but I would also like to ask what makes you think that my signs were embarrassing the entire group? Why would so many make positive remarks in reference to the signs I was holding, if I was embarrassing the entire group?

Also, I was not getting mad because anyone tried to stop me from doing anything. One guy tried to stop me by attacking me and a couple of other people (maybe William?) mentioned that they thought that the swastika was inappropriate. I accepted their humble input with appreciation, but due to the research I had done & the positive feedback I had received from many I didn't feel that the concern of a few was convincing enough for me to put my sign away.

To conclude, please understand that my frustrations are not at anyone else's differing point of view or their willingness to share it with me. My frustration is with the behavior of a few people who chose to make assumptions and then make false accusations at me.

My mother put it best in her reply to the man who attacked, threatened, and commanded me to leave public property (at 2:45pm, the end of the tea party)...when she said, "We need all the help we can get from our young citizens - don't bully them, educate them."

To see her full comment, click here....http://www.naplesnews.com/blogs/naples-tea-party/2010/apr/16/time_for_tea________/

If you have to spend the next gazillion days of your life explaining to everyone why your protest sign was, like, totally the most insightful sign EVER and then call upon God to back you up - then perhaps you can think about everything really hard and come up with some answers to the questions you seek.

Or you can keep scouring the Internet in an effort to explain to everyone why your sign was really, really, good and that you are really, really, sincere and if you do it long enough, maybe you will actually find another person who really, really cares.

On second thought, I'm sorry for my negative comment. You are younger than I realized. It sounds as if you want to contribute and I hope that you will continue to do so in the future. I'm sure that your next sign won't have a swastika on it.

Thank you. I understand now that you were just trying to set the record straight. Keep up the good work and don't let misunderstandings get you down. Stuff happens. You have great spirit. May God bless you and this great country of ours.

You teapartiers CRACK ME UP. Orwell was right about the future; he just missed the date by a few years. Talk about "doublethink;" you are doing the biding of corporatist America, which is the definition of fascism.

Obama is not the problem. If anything, he's just a Republican-lite. And his so-called "health-care reform" is really just a copy of the plan Bob Dole came up with to counter Bill Clinton's efforts at health care reform.

Somehow the leaders of the Republican/right (not just the politicians, but the Goebbels-esque propagandists like Hannity and Limbaugh) have convinced you to vote against your own interests time and time again. And the worse things get, the more you dig in. Unbelievable.

The girl with the swastika sign got it partly right, when she mentioned "fascism" and "corporatism." Corporations are running this country, not you. And they pay for the campaigns that gin up fear, like yours (and spare me the explanations about how you're not beholden to anyone; you're beholden to the interests of the right wing).

It was the right, starting with your ridiculously sanctified Ronald Reagan, who have destroyed this country. He promoted the idea that deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy and the largest corporations would "trickle down" to folks like, I'm assuming, you (pardon me if I'm wrong, and you who are reading this are actually the CEO of a huge corporation. For those who are not, it is to you whom I speak).

Then the Bush family compounded the problem by engaging us in these ridiculous, unnecessary military occupations of sovereign nations (by the way, if you ant to make a REAL comparison to Hitler, it's Bush/Iraq and Hitler/Poland).

These farcical excursions into the middle east are what has rally brought the world to the brink of collapse. Sadly, George Bush had a real opportunity, in the wake of 9/11, to do the RIGHT thing, the CHRISTIAN thing, in response. We as a nation hd the goodwill of the entire world on our side. We could have led the globe into a new era of peace, prosperity, and cooperation. Instead, we reacted EXACTLY AS BIN LADEN WANTED US TO REACT.

That's the part that so few of you seem to understand, because so few of you seem to actually know anything about history.

How many of you know that George H.W. Bush used to run the CIA? And how many of you know that, in the in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden was on the CIA payroll? How many of you know that Saddam Hussein used to be our "friend," because of his opposition to Iran?

In the 1980s, when the former Soviet Union was occupying Afghanistan, bin Laden was a CIA operative, paid by US to fight the Soviets. And he learhed his lesson well: draw the larger country into an intractable, unwinnable occupation, and use insurgency to bleed them dry.

It wasn't Reagan who "defeated" the USSR and "won" the Cold War (despite the rewriting of history by the Hannitizers), it was OSAMA BIN LADEN.

Our current economy is the result of these problems (coporations running amok, endless unwinnable wars that drain the treasury). And there is no turning back the clock. The game is over. We are an empire in decline, and your tea parties are mere distractions, intended to keep you focused on the elderly-killing Hitler-loving Socialist Muslim occupying the White House and NOT focused on what is ACTUALLY wrong.

Obama is a lousy president, but not because he's a "socialist." It's actually because he's too much like a Republican. Again, "his" health care plan is really just a set of laws that force people to buy insurance from private companies. It's a REPUBLICAN plan.

And as I mentioned before, you act against your own interests. There rally IS a better way to do things than the way we've done them. There ARE ways to bring down health care costs and make sure all (or most) are covered, for a LOT less money than we spend individually or as a nation.

It's always about the money, so follow the money and you'll find the truth. It was the insurance companies who opposed Obama's plan, because they didn't want the competition from a "public option." As soon as the public option was dropped, the insurance companies basically shut up.

Reagan sold the idea that government can't do anything, and that unfettered business was the key to a successful country and economy. It was that same attitude that caused the Great Depression, and it's the same attitude that's causing the current one (and don't kid yourself, this is more than a recession).

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations (and the very word "corp" means "body") have the same rights s people. Corporations can back politicians with YOUR money if you work for them or pay them for products and services. And they have a LOT more money than you do. Obviously they are going to back the politicians who favor them, and vice versa.

Seriously, the whole game is rigged, and all this energy you're expending on this "Obama is Socialist" trip is a complete waste of time, and totally mises the point. It is time to REALLY support our troops and BRING THEM HOME. ALL OF THEM. And further, it is time to stop treating corporations as "most favored persons," and start requiring them to be good citizens. Put down the silly signs, turn off Hannity, FOX, and Beck, and start reading some books.

And the fuss you're making over this "plant," as if you cracked the friggin' Venona codes or something, is hilarious. He wasn't a "plant," he was just ome guy who was goofing on you. Because you're all acting goofy. Seriously: a bunch of poorly-made signs and hideous "patriotic" outfits are not going to accomplish anything.

I don't know what you're getting so worked up about. I think you're watching too much CNN and MSNBC and getting a very distorted view of the Tea Parties.

The Tea Parties are opposed to the very corporatism/fascism that you claim to be opposed to. Tea Partiers are opposed to the Wall Street bailouts and housing bailouts and car bailouts. The ruling class politicians of both parties and the ruling class media supported all of these.

"The Tea Parties are opposed to the very corporatism/fascism that you claim to be opposed to. Tea Partiers are opposed to the Wall Street bailouts and housing bailouts and car bailouts. The ruling class politicians of both parties and the ruling class media supported all of these."

Please. The "tea party" is very much pro-right and anti-Obama. I noticed there was no tea part until the first black President came along.

You can pay lip service to some sort of vague libertarianism, but the bottom line is that most "tea partiers" will vote for Republicans when push comes to shove.

And it is very much the right wing/Republicans that have destroyed this once-great nation.

And for what it's worth, I don't watch CNN or MSNBC. I occasionally watch FOX (to keep my friends close and my enemies closer).

I get my news by reading, both print and online news sources. Several major U.S. newspapers with different editorial slants, my hometown newspaper, and a few from different countries. Also magazines, history books, and so on.

Eight years of Reagan, four years of the elder Bush, eight years of GW. Our entire economy DECIMATED, our way of life permanently dismantled. Military occupations of sovereign nations that didn't attack us, and have drained the Treasury and ruined what was left of our economy. Domestic and Foreign Policies that have brought the U.S. and the world to the brink of total collapse.

All that, yet no "tea party."

Then the black guy wins, and suddenly it's time to overthrow the government? LOL! Sorry, wcv, I don't need any "biased journalism" to see through THAT bullshit.

I've poked around a little. You're a bright cat; I like a lot of what you have to say.

So you're way too smart to pretend bot to know what's really happening re: the "tea party movement."You know as well as I do that the real reason they're suddenly acting out is a caustic mix of fear and racism and jingoism and ignorance. It's not biased journalists making all those "Obama is a Socialist" signs, and the anti-Muslim signs, and so on.

Sure, there are probably a few genuine libertarians at the core of the movement, but that's not what makes up the bulk of the tea party.

Dude, Obama has taken Bush's fiscal recklessness to unimaginable new heights.

We used to think Bush was an a-hole for running deficits of a few hundred billion. Now Obama is running structural deficits of more than a trillion as far as the eye can see.

Sure, more people should have been on the fiscal responsibility bandwagon earlier, but the bubble hadn't burst and most people didn't realize how unsustainable the economy was. We had low unemployment and everybody was getting rich with their home prices rising. Now with the bubble giving way to Depression, you're surprised people are angry?

And I know you're obsessed with him being black, but the rest of us aren't.

You really need to move beyond this partisan Democrats-good, Republicans-bad mindset. Politicians of both parties are rotten to the core.

"Dude, Obama has taken Bush's fiscal recklessness to unimaginable new heights."

I disagree. Obama was faced with certain realities. I think he's been a lousy President, but not because of deficits. It was Bush's policies and spending that *&%# us. There wasn't much Obama could have done other than deficit spending, which history has shown is often the only thing that works in times of steep recession. Obama didn't crate the recession, Bush and his policies did.

And I'm not the one who's obsessed with Obama being black. That's a low-rent argument, and you know it. Just because I'm calling out the inherent racism in the movement you support doesn't make ME the one who's "obsessed" with his skin color.

You can TRY to argue around it, but it's a little too cute to say that people woke up to the fiscal realties at the same time Obama got elected, and it's all just pure coincidence. Please. Don;t embarrass me -or yourself- with that line of reasoning.

I still remeber where I was the night that the tanks rolled across the Irag border, in a "war" (cough!) that was supposed to last "weeks, not months." I wrote a letter to my wife and kids that night and had her put it away for them to read when they're grown up.

In it, I explained that e are an empire in decline, and I described exactly how the Iraq "war" (cough!) was going to play out, the effect Bush's jingoistic, knuckle-dragging response to 9/11 was going to have on our economy, and how Bush would exploit 9/11 for the rest of his career, including using it to gain reelection.

If a random douchebag like me had it all sussed out seven years ago, then other people should have figured it out too.

I suggested that the tea party was driven in large part by racism. You argued that no, it's just that the tea partiers were too stupid to catch on to how bad things were until Bush left office. It's sort of a lose/lose, that.

I hold the Republicans responsible for mot of what's wrong with this nation right now, though, FAR more than I do the Democrats. I don't buy into the idea that they're both equally "guilty."

If I saw someone with a splinter and a headowund, I'd treat the headwound first. Doesn't mean the splinter won;t need to get tweezed eventually, but there's not much point in plucking the splintger first while the guy bleeds to death.

Fisrt it's time to stop the economic and SOCIAL damage the Republicans have done and continue to do to this country. And like it or not, many of your tea partiers are shills -however unwitting- for the Republicans.

It's time to stop pretending that mosques and mexicans are the biggest problems we face, and start being honest about what's really going on.

That's weird. I got a mesage that my post was too big, so I split it up and posted it in two sections, only to see that my original post showed up after all. Please forgive the redundancy, I'll try to delete the excess material.

Did you write that? Because it belies everything you've said about how "this has nothing to do with Obama and is about all politicians," etc.

Because he's goofing on the tea party, he's an "Obamabot"?

I'm goofing on the tea party, and I'm not an "Obamabot."

Your reflexive conclusion says a lot more about your (or the tea party's) real positions than all the rest of the things you've said to me.

I understand that "the media" will look for the most inflammatory signs. But to dismiss the undertone of racism in "your" movement as you've done is either a measure of your ignorance or your dishonesty.

Again, I don't need "the media" to realize that 2 + 2 always = 4.

"what's that say about non-Tea-Partiers, who are still not in the streets calling for reform? If the Tea Partiers were slow, everybody else is comatose."

As it's always been. Again, that's distraction from the fact that the "tea party" materialized virtually overnight when the black guy showed up.

I know racism when I see it, sir. You do me or yourself no service by insulting my intelligence.

And I suppose the fact that Obama had very high approval ratings early in his term and very low approval ratings now means that the vast majority of Americans were not racists in 2009, but are racists in 2010? It doesn't have anything to do with his hard-left policies and Chicago bare-knuckle tactics?

"And I suppose the fact that Obama had very high approval ratings early in his term and very low approval ratings now means that the vast majority of Americans were not racists in 2009, but are racists in 2010? It doesn't have anything to do with his hard-left policies and Chicago bare-knuckle tactics?"

Which "hard left" policies would those be? Trying to implement Bob Dole's health care plan? Maintaining Bush's illegal occupations in the middle east? The continuation of the Patriot Act? The utter lack of transparency vis a vis "homeland security," etc?

Obama is anything but "hard left." And if he's so "bare-knuckled," why do the Dems still roll over for the Repubs at every turn?

This whole left/right thing is a joke. Polically, we are a right/further right nation, thanks to the "Reagan Revolution." Which is exactly why we are at the brink of disaster.

"Some people just want to see racism wherever they look."

Conflating Obama's approval ratings with the advent of the tea party is simply more specious arguing. Obama's approval rating is in the tank because the economy sucks. End of story.But the tea party is a different entity entirely. And the more you pretend that there is no racism at the core of the tea party movement, the less credibility you have.

You can keep asserting that I "want to see racism," but that's simply ridiculous. It's faulty logic. I see the FACTS. To insist that it's the result of fevered imagination is an insult to my (and your) intelligence.

"So economic collapse can cause mainstream polls to plummet, but it can't help spur the rise of a political opposition movement?"

"Only racism can create a political opposition movement?"

"Interesting logic."

I see how you play your game here, wcv. And it is apparently your turf, so you get to decide how the game is played, I suppose.

I'm not going to buy into your continued efforts to reframe my arguments.

I just notice how you conveniently ignore so many blatantly obvious facts, and speak out of both sides of your mouth while doing so.

Like claiming that "the tea party isn't partisan and opposes both major parties" comes out of one side of your mouth, while someone who holds up a sign goofing on you must be an "Obamabot" comes out of the other.

Here's the bottom line: there is a LOT of racism at work in the opposition to Obama in general, and the tea part specifically. If it really were about fiscal policy, this opposition would have welled up two, four, or six years ago.

You can keep pretending that the tea party is motivated by the purest of beliefs, and that you're shocked -shocked I say!- by spurious accusations of racism.

But you will be lying. And you know it.

If that's where you want to hold your ground, that's certainly your prerogative.

Racism is among the vilest of charges you can hurl at a political opponent.

You hurl it with no evidence other than your own presuppositions.

I would be happy in the coming days to give you plenty of material to read, but perhaps a good start would be James Taranto's Why the Left needs racism.

And perhaps you should ponder the morality and wisdom of throwing such vile accusations at people you don't know. As I've suggested before, go to a Tea Party and meet some people before you slander them.